Cabrini’s closing leaves this basketball recruit looking for a new school

Gannon Perlini woke up last Friday to a text from his Pennridge High basketball coach. Perlini already has graduated from Pennridge. This summer was about preparing for the next stage of his life, playing basketball at Cabrini University.

Gannon ... Show your dad this article ... You need to find out more about this.

The article, on D3sports.com, was titled, “Cabrini University to be sold.”

Perlini texted Pennridge coach Dean Behrens back, “I’ll check it out.”

Within hours, Perlini knew this was happening, his own future also part of this sale agreement, Villanova buying Cabrini. One more year for Cabrini, then gone.

» READ MORE: Villanova to buy Cabrini University

“Definitely was a shocker,” Perlini said over the phone this week. “I wasn’t super heavily recruited. Cabrini was the one and only spot for me.”

A Cabrini assistant coach had spotted Perlini at a Hoop Group camp in the Poconos last summer. “I guess he, like, discovered me,” Perlini said of Kevin Murray, then Cabrini’s associate head coach. “I had won the most hardworking at the camp. He offered me a roster spot.”

Perlini quickly accepted it, was excited about it. There was a coaching change at Cabrini after the season. Ryan Van Zelst had just come over after a successful first season at Penn State Abington. Perlini was still excited, liking what heard from the new man.

The new man obviously was blindsided as well. Van Zelst declined to talk this week, texting that he didn’t have much to say at this time. Probably smart.

Before the official word, rumors had been swirling, including rumors about the exact scenario that has come to pass.

Locally, this is seismic news athletically. Cabrini has such a rich hoops tradition. In 2012, the Cavaliers won 31 games and reached the NCAA Division III national title game, losing by just three points. Before then, John Dzik had a 25-year Hall of Fame run at Cabrini, winning 16 conference titles. If you simply judged by athletic success, Cabrini was way down the list of schools in danger of closing. That beautiful campus, in trouble?

That’s not how the world of higher education works, of course. So many institutions are operating in the red. This likely wasn’t Plan A for Cabrini, but mergers don’t necessarily work if both merging schools are in debt.

Cabrini will field teams for one more season, just as the University of Sciences did after a merger agreement with St. Joseph’s.

» READ MORE: Erik Reynolds saw transfer portal door, ignored it to stay on Hawk Hill

Perlini could go to Cabrini for a year. There was a call, with the new head coach explaining the plans for the next season, with the focus on moving players to another program. He’s not doing that. You may have noticed that a lot of other local schools immediately have starting wooing Cabrini students. It’s a tight market for students, so nearby Rosemont and Immaculata and even La Salle made it clear they would welcome Cabrini transfers.

For athletes, things are trickier. Perlini got a message out over the weekend on his own social media, thanking Cabrini and the coaches there “for giving me the opportunity to play college basketball.”

Ironic, yes.

“Due to Cabrini closing after the 23-24 season, I will be reopening my recruiting,” Perlini wrote.

That was helpful?

“Oh my God,” Perlini said. “Was huge. I was obviously looking to play at the college level. I had gotten over 16,000 views in a day. … I think I had a really good season last season. I shot 56% from three.”

That’s a big-time stat. Sure, Perlini knows he needs to show that the rest of his game translates to college ball. But everyone needs shooters. Perlini quickly heard from Delaware Valley, Misericordia, Eastern, Marywood, Rosemont, Lebanon Valley.

“The feedback has been positive,” Perlini said.

So it looks like he’ll find a home and a roster spot. It’s just going to be an adjustment. Talking about Cabrini, he said, “We’re a small college.”

He adjusted on the fly.

“They’re a small college. … It will definitely be a what-if scenario in my mind for a really long time.”

His father had been a practice player at St. Joseph’s while John Griffin was the coach there. Perlini could have thought about that kind of path, he said, but he’d been looking for minutes of his own, with a hope for higher ground — “Leave a mark on a program forever.”

The goal is the same. Destination now unknown.